Month in Review: August, 2011

After 10% of my daily audience gave me feedback that told me that I needed to cut down on the blog posts, I decided to give in.  And, when the posts drop from nine posts a week to four or less, a week in review seems like a waste of time, not to mention padding.

So, I'm going to see how easy it is to do a month in review. In all likelihood, it won't be too overwhelming.  But we'll see.  And, it's easy enough this month, because the first week was already wrapped up and summarized here, in what might be the last week in review.

Everyone probably remembers the four part author review of the works of John Ringo, which included free books for every one of his series.  They were broken down into Thrillers, Epics, rewriting Greek history as scifi, and the warrior ninja for God.

The music blogs this month were heavy on Tom Smith: some songs about video games, smashing faeries and the Blue Oyster Cult, a return to Firefly, and the Wiki Pirates, and blogging like the end of the world.

I also had some writing blogs.  A little bit on editing, and some more about fighting and writing with Krav Maga.

I did a self defense review of my articles on self defense, mainly because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

And, I decided to have some fun this week.  I had a character of mine answer an online survey.  It was amusing. I also think some of my characters may be on drugs.

Well, that was easy.  Let's see how September goes.

Next month, we have the return of author and guest blogger Karina Fabian, and she'll talk to us a bit about her upcoming novel Mind over Mind, starting on September 13.

See you then.

Self defense Review: DSK, Oslo, Pens as weapons, and Krav Maga.

You might remember a while ago, I posted a list of articles I have written for Examiner.com, about self defense in New York City.

I'm still writing for them, and it's still around.

First things first: there's a self defense seminar in the city on 9-11 this year. You might want to look at it.

Pens as weapons. (EDC Tools) A pen is an Every Day Carry tool.  Do you want to know how it can be used as a weapon?

Top ten "improvised weapons." This article pretty much means what it says.

Are you a target? Situational awareness Some people are natural born targets, mainly because they don't pay attention.  Could this be you?

Meeting people from online in real life, part one and part two  -- the title says it all.  After experiencing one or two dates where women have no problem at all accepting a ride from me, it says two things: on the one hand, I have a nice face, and people think I'm trustworthy. On the other, some people might be a little too trusting.

Self defense in New York. Again. Or: Killing people isn't fun. This covers a real life incident that explores the rules of engagement for defending yourself in New York.

Self defense and Child Obesity -- pretty much what it says.

Can New York City become Oslo? After someone tried to blow up Norway, I decided to focus my attention there for a while.

How to Spot a Suicide Bomber in 12 steps.  If you've been on this site a lot, you know this one already.  If not, enjoy.

DSK and Rape. I analyzed the rape charges against a French bureaucrat in New York, and I came up with a conclusion. And that conclusion is that there should be pain.

Levi Aron, Leiby Kletzky, and "stranger danger."  In New York, a little boy was killed, and dismembered.  The real danger would be bringing back an old practice that did no good the first time around.

Oslo, Abdo, a tale of two terrorists. This was the week that everyone tried to blow stuff up.  And I went nuclear in response.

Dealing with a stalker ex.  After listening to several female friends complain about these incidents, I decided there should be a how-to guide.

How to survive a bar fight in five easy steps Exactly what it says.

Parking lot safety. Hunting in the Urban Wild. You are the prey.

Purse-snatching defenses. They want your bag. You're going to hurt them.

Characters answering surveys: Sean A.P. Ryan

Have you ever gotten an internet survey?  It has strange questions like your favorite foods, and flavors, that sort of thing.

Ever wondered what would happen if you had a novel character answer one of those?

I decided to have a little fun this week, so I decided to fill one of them out .... as my character Sean A.P. Ryan, mercenary, security expert, and weapon of mass destruction..  You've seen him mentioned on the sight, you've probably even read some of the short stories, including his "origin".

Just in case you thought he wasn't weird enough to start with ........

***********

1) Your Name: Sean Aloysius Patricus Ryan
2) Nicknames: Cleanser of the Gene Pool, Mercenary. "Oh crap, it's him, RUN!!!"
3) City where you live?: Hollyweird, California
4) School?: Auto-didact
5) Parents Names?: FBI Agent Elizabeth Tierny, Clarence Ryan, actor.
6) Eye color?: Blue
7) Hair?: Black
8)Pets?: Do colleagues count?
9) Siblings?: Sister, 1, Claudia Ryan
10) Best Friends: See #8
12) Best Enemies: I have no living enemies. At all
13) Can you dance?: Does Capoeira count?

Favorite TV Shows
Comedy: Dexter
Drama: The A-Team.
Reality Show: Star Trek.
Gardening Show: Weeds.
Science Fiction: Wolf Blitzer Reports

Favorite actor: Viggo Mortensen. We've knocked out a few of each other's teeth. A few times.

WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING: The Anarchist Cookbook

WHAT CD's ARE IN YOUR PLAYER RIGHT NOW?: Homemade CD: March of Cambreadth on a loop.

WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?: NRA symbol

FAVORITE BOARD GAME?: Killer Parcheesi

FAVORITE MAGAZINES: Guns & Ammo

FAVORITE SMELLS?: I love the smell of Napalm in the morning

WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD?: being thrown out of a fifth story window without knowing what's below you
BEST FEELING IN THE WORLD?: When you discover that it's only a pool.

ROLLER COASTER SCARY OR EXCITING?: I think it's a great target.

HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE?: I screen all of them.

FUTURE CHILD' NAME? Let's see if I live long enough to have them.

DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST? I learned at the FBI driving course at Quantico, I don't know how to drive slow. Italian drivers think I'm insane.

DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL? No, a gun under the pillow.

STORMS - COOL OR SCARY? They're cool, especially if I need the cover during a night time insertion.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR? : Crown vic.

IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON DEAD OR ALIVE:  I have a list of people I'd like to meet, they're all dead. I'd like to kill them again.

FAVORITE DRINK? Vodka ... they make great Molotov cocktails.

EVER BEEN IN LOVE?: .... None of your business.

WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED? Things the ATF is afraid of

FAVORITE COLOR CLOTHES TO WEAR:  Camouflage

Do you believe in Heaven/Hell: There better be a hell, if only for me to send all of those f**kers there.

Who is the person(s) you despise most?: I have a list somewhere.
What is your computer desk made of? Plexiglass overlay, and three-inch steel plates.
What did you do last night?: I plead the fifth amendment.
Dream car?: "The Beast," aka, the Presidential Limo
Have you ever won any special awards?: Craziest Stunt Man Award. Certified in Krav Maga, Protection Fitness, long Island.
Do you like to dance?: Does Capoeira count?
 Fast or slow?: Fast, because if you move, they can't get you.

What is the stupidest thing you have ever done?: There was an incident with a burning orc suit.......

Music: Blog like it's the end of the world.

I didn't have anything else to blog about today, so I figured I'd just throw a music blog in here ....

First up, Tom Smith .... describing what this job feels like some days.

So, what would happen if you, one day, became a Jedi?

Come to the dark side, we have cookies.

Music Blog: Firefly, Tom Smith, and WIki Pirates.

I've been told that I have waaaaayyyy too many blog posts per day, so I'm cutting back on them.  I'll see how the new posting schedule turns out.

Now, the first song is from Tom Smith, and dedicated to anyone who has ever had to fight with schmucks online.

If you've never seen the TV show Firefly, you might be a little lost. Otherwise, it's just very, very nerdy.

Author Review: John Ringo, Final round ... The Epics. (Free Books.)

This is the last post for looking at the posts of John Ringo. These are also the last of the free novels I can find online for Ringo.  If you're tired of reading about Ringo, don't worry, I'm tired of writing about him.  Trust me, the books are more interesting to read than they are to write about.

So, one last time, here we go....

Into the Looking Glass

Into the Looking Glass--- the other book that got me interested in Ringo in the first place. Military stuff and advanced physics. Aliens are coming through portals called “looking glasses”, and they all want to take over the Earth.

Vorpal Blade -- we have a spaceship. We have a crew.  It's now time to explore strange world worlds, seek out new hostile alien life forms, and send them straight to hell.

Other books in this series are Manxome Foe and Claws that Catch. And, yes, we have a pattern in Lewis Carroll.

In case you're wondering, when I said that John Ringo is using advanced physics in his novels, I mean it.  After Into the Looking Glass, he has a co-author, Travis S. Taylor, who used to be his adviser on physics, and had to be the co-author.

This leads to ...

On Editing

This will be a short post today.

I'm not done posting the seemingly endless stream of John Ringo novels.  I loved reading these books, but as I look at my own facebook page, cluttered with links to posts about John Ringo posts, I'm starting to get tired about writing about them.

So, on Monday, we will have the last of the John Ringo posts, and the most about the books for free on the Baen website.

But, today, I'm going to look at a very strange phenomenon: editing.

I'm not going to talk about editing A Pius Man, mainly because it's almost impossible for me to edit my own work, a problem a lot of authors face.

For example, Stephen King had one amusing problem with the edits of Salem's Lot.  He found one of his friends laughing hysterically over a page that was supposed to have the locals of the town of Salem's Lot "shooting pheasants for food."

Instead, King's friend found himself reading a line that the citizens of Salem's Lot were "shooting peasants for food."

Oops.

You may remember Karina Fabian, who guest-blogged for us back in April during her virtual book tour for Infinite Space, Infinite God II..  She recently asked for beta readers for her upcoming novel Discovery, which was based around the Rescue Nuns in outer space who starred in her short story Anti-venin, which I called "Snakes on a Starship." (more below the break)

I liked Discovery, though there were some issues I had with the draft I read.  I may be one of the few people who read visually.  I see events as I read about them.  I even picture events as I hear about them (which have lead to some embarrassing moments for me, I can tell you now). So, as I read through the novel, I had made a few notes of "I'm sorry, can I get descriptions / details on these people?"  She had the details on the characters, I just had to go back and forth because they were spread all over the book.

Given her reply, I'm starting to think I'm one of the few people who reads like that.  With luck, I can go into a full review on the novel some other time.  I liked the book, and I suspect I'll love it by the time she gets to her final draft.

I was also an editor on one book, for at least the first ninety pages. And I found something inadvertently funny.

Rendering of Peregrine
As done by artist
Nicole Le.

The original second paragraph of chapter one is a description of her costume (pictured on the left).  It's supposed to be a simple ninja tunic that fit over her street clothes.  The draft I read looked like this.

Rae Masterson crouched on the edge of the roof and tried to stifle the butterflies flitting madly around her stomach. She had done this before. She’d trained for a whole year and a half, memorized a hundred contingency plans, even field-tested her costume. She could do this. The summer sun was roasting the black cotton of her costume tunic. Rae reached up under her deep hood and wiped sweat off her exposed forehead, above her lower-face mask.

The description is wonderfully done, isn't it?  It's nice, and neat and concise.  Rae has an instance where she leaps off of a roof and lands on top of a bad guy.

The arc was perfect, and she sailed feetfirst through the air, her loose black tunic fluttering around her, tugging at the red sash that cinched her costume tight around her waist. The tunic hung to her knees when she stood still, but it was slit up to the hip on each side to let her run and kick, and the front and back flaps snapped like flags in the light breeze. Her hood lifted free of her head and billowed out like a sail behind her, her brown ponytail rising off her neck as she fell. She thought of the figure of the scarlet peregrine falcon on her back, and felt like she was flying.

Elegantly written, isn't it?

Can you spot the problem?

There's a reason I posted the photo.  Every other editor had seen it as well.

If you'll go over the description, you'll see there's nothing about her wearing jeans.

Apparently, of her multiple readers, I'm the only one who spotted it. And the part about her flying through the air, the flaps on both sides ... you get the idea.

If you ever wonder why professional authors, who have published multiple novels, sometimes have problems with sentences, punctuation, etc, this is why.

I would publish some of my own gaffs, but the first draft of A Pius Man was written about seven years, six rewrites, ten beta-readings, six beta readers, four computers, and Lord knows how many drafts ago.  

And that's just one book.

And this is why authors tend to thank their editors.  A lot.

Music Blog: Smashin' Fairies, Don't fear the Reaper

Tom Smith ... amusing music while on drugs.





And now, some for something completely different.

I'm told that this song is popular, but my connection to popular media is tenuous on good days.  I only picked this up from a music list in on of John Ringo's novels -- appropriate, considering I posted more of his free books today.

Don't Fear the Reaper, by Blue Oyster Cult

Author Review: John Ringo, Part 3, the Thrillers. (Still, with Free Books.)

Here we go again.

As mentioned, John Ringo has written a LOT in the past decade.  He's only been writing since 1999, but he's been pumping out almost three to four books a year ever since.

However, despite the previous posts, he hasn't written only political-heavy science-fiction and fantasy novels. But, they're all published by Baen, so they're still free for download.

To start with there's this one character of his who's a navy SEAL ....

The Paladin of Shadows (series)

.... This one is odd.

Ghost --- This first book is made of a series of three vignettes, and stars one Mike Harmon, a veteran who is not a very nice person, but he does qualify as a good man. Ringo opens this book with a quote from George Orwell -- We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to do violence on our behalf.

Mr. Harmon is one such rough person.


“Ghost” is the code name of former Navy SEAL Mike Harmon. Trapped on a far-left college campus, the veteran feels isolated and discriminated against. But when he sees a co-ed being kidnapped, he charges in to save the day, only to find himself in the middle of a terrorist plot that takes him all the way to Syria, where he lands in the middle of a terrorist stronghold, and eighty hostages, all of whom are slated to die.

The second vignette... skim it. Trust me.  It's a thirty thousand word story that's twenty thousand words of bondage porn and deep-sea fishing.

Vignette three finds Harmon in Eastern Europe, and he finds himself hip deep in a plot to nuke Paris.

Kildar—Harmon, still moving through Eastern Europe, finds himself trapped in the middle of a valley during a snowstorm. He buys lodging to hold up in during the winter, but this new home comes with an interesting piece of real estate -- the entire valley.  The home also comes with a title for the owner.  The title is Kildar.

However, Harmon still has a problem.  The Valley is in the middle of a pathway for Chechen terrorists killing everyone in their way. Now, Ghost has to train the locals to stop the invaders, or else everyone is going to die.

Unfortunately for the Chechens, killing is what Ghost does best.

Choosers of the Slain: A US Senator has a problem.  The daughter of a major money donor has been disappeared into the Balkan sex slave trade.  Here's five million dollars, could Harmon and his merry band of mountain warriors do something about the matter?

And when Ghost and company discover that some of the clientele in this sex trade happen to be from Washington D.C. ... well, there's a reason I picked up certain songs from this author.

And, there's a reason that the cover looks like the movie poster for a James Bond film.

Unto the Breach.  After the incident with the slave trade, people in Washington figure that Mike "Ghost" Harmon is a great person to call upon when the situation is both dire, and politically inconvenient.

This time, a scientist has been kidnapped by terrorists.  The problem?  He's an expert in biological warfare.

And that's not even the problem.   The problem is when the terrorists follow Harmon home, back into the valley he has lived in for years. But the local people are warriors by culture, and by blood, and they've been itching for a good fight. And all Hell breaks loose.

Remember when I mentioned where I first heard Dragonforce?  This was the book.


A Deeper Blue.


Biological weapon at Disneyland, with a shootout at the Holy Rodent Empire.

I think that's all you need to know for this one. It was fun.






The Last Centurion. I'm still not sure what to make of this one. To start with, this is a non-Mike Harmon novel.  Technically, it's science fiction, but only because it's set a few years into the future.  The United States has invaded Iran, beaten it, and is still there, even though President "the Bitch" has ordered a half-asses withdrawal. This book was published in 2008, so you can guess who he means.  The world has been hit with a global pandemic, the Earth is in crisis, and American army officer "Bandit Six" is trapped in the middle of Iran, with no support, no help, and the only way out is through the hostile territories of six countries..

This is a heavily political novel.  Ringo WANTS to piss off everyone with SOMETHING in this book—he didn't piss me off, but I'm odd. It's a one-shot, and written in blog format, with all that the genre entails. It was written in early 2008, before Swine Flu, the rise of Obama, and the first 100 pages, you will NOT know what's going on... okay maybe you will, but it took me a few pages to get into this one. He shoots at Fox news, environmentalists, the army, the peaceniks ... pick someone, he shoots at them.

Music Blog: Dead Again in video games

Dedicated to all those who have ever run into the video game designed for the sole purpose of killing the player.

And, speaking of video games, a nice piece from Halo 3: Finish the Fight.  It starts slow, but builds nicely, and kicks in around the minute twenty mark.  Enjoy

Author Review: John Ringo 2

Last week, I mentioned the author John Ringo.  He does several genres -- science fiction, thrillers, speculative fiction, and a bit of fantasy.

And you can get most of his novels for free.  Right here.  100% legal.

Last week, I had briefly covered his fantasy novel Princess of Wands, this time, let's try something a little different.

Prince Roger / Empire of Man

The Anabassis is an old story.  It's also known as the story of the ten thousand.  It's translated as "The March Up."

The original story is about ten thousand Greek mercenaries who went to work for a Persian king.  Unfortunately, their employer lost, and they were stranded in the middle of enemy territory.  Their only hope was to march, northward, to the sea.


This is the John Ringo version.

So, of course, John Ringo (writing off of a very heavy outline by veteran author David Weber), called his first novel in the series "March Upcountry."  And the second book is  March to the Sea.

However, instead of ten thousand mercenaries, Ringo starts with Prince Roger, the tertiary heir to the "Throne of Man," an Earth Empire that is based in Washington DC.

And Prince Roger is a royal bastard.

And I mean that literally.

Roger is the unwanted heir.  He acts out, has no sense of his place in the empire, feels like a waste, and every time he wants to say something noble and diplomatic, it comes out as a whine.  He's like a teenager permanently stuck in the awkward stage.

Which means that Roger's bodyguards dislike him with a burning passion.

However, when the Empire's enemies, known simply as "the Saints," try to assassinate him by blowing up his ship, Roger and his bodyguards are marooned on the backwater, the hostile planet of Marduk.  The terrain is hostile, half the population is hostile, and -- oh, yeah, did we mention that the tropical humidity makes the plasma rifles explode?  What do you expect when they're produced by the lowest bidder?

And, one more thing: there's only one spaceport, it's about eight months march and an ocean away, and it may be held by the people who had just tried to kill Roger and his people.

You can never say that Ringo makes it easy on his characters.

On the one hand, it's a growing experience for Prince Roger. He's going to grow up, or die.  On the other, what does he grow up into?  And, should he make it out of there alive, what will the empire look like after he's gone for who knows how long?

One of the interesting things about this series is how Ringo plays it. Not only does he have  several fully developed cultures, as well as an assortment of futuristic weapons, but -- due to the plasma weapons blowing up -- comes up with a great way to limit him and his men to local weaponry.  So, as they march across the planet, they go from fighting like Roman legionnaires, to medieval warfare, to a battle that looks like it came out of the Napoleonic wars of Richard Sharpe.

At the end of the day, this might be one of John Ringos best series, and the least political.  The only politics in the entire novel involve local, tribal politics of the planet Marduk, and (very briefly) of the Empire Roger is heir to. It mostly focuses on strong character, and it even keeps up as the actions sequences are ongoing.  And, while Ringo focuses heavily on infantry, even his space battles are well-done, and reminiscent of David Weber or Timothy Zahn.

All-in-all, it's fun. And, it's free. 

Week in Review: 8-4-2011: Oslo, Abdo, Ringo. Can I buy a different vowel?

This week was just strange.

Over at Examiner.com, I have three articles that apparently went over very well with the editors. One is on DSK and Rape, another on an upsurge of "stranger danger"  and finally, Oslo, Abdo, a tale of two terrorists, and why looks can be deceiving. 

In yet another moment of being pissed off, I discussed how the Oslo bomber has more in common with Richard Dawkins than Pat Robertson .... this will be the only time I may make a complimentary statement about Pat Robertson.

And then I turned around and decided to beat Pfc Nasser Abdo soundly around the head and shoulders.  If you don't know him, he tried to blow up Ft. Hood .... again.

And, due to all of the political crap going on this week, I posted a blog I wrote in January, but never got around to publishing, mainly because I wanted to avoid the garbage at the time.  But I held onto it, because I don't throw anything out.  The Topic?  The shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, and "political civility."  How's that working out for everyone?

My music blog on Tuesday was the return of Tom Smith, with a smidgen of Tom Lehrer. If you don't know who Lehrer is, you should.

I had an entire post dedicated to the books of John Ringo .... untrue, actually. I have a review of one of his novels.  However, that post does have a link to a whole bunch of free e-books, so knock yourself out.

Author Review: John Ringo, Part 1 (Free Books, and Princess of Wands)

When Jim Baen was still alive and running Baen books, he had several principles.
1) He hated agents
2) It didn't matter what your political philosophy was, as long as you stated it well, you could be published by his company.
3) He  figured that giving away the books was the best way for people to get into them.

I'm quite serious about #3.  However, this was before the rise of the e-readers, and Mr. Baen died before that.  The company hasn't changed that stance, however....

So, you want a book for free?

Today, I'm looking at author John Ringo .... who, by the way, has no relationship to outlaw Johnny Ringo, of the old west.  If you look at his novels, you can see he's somewhere around libertarian / right-wing ... however, he actually has reasons for what he believes in, and when it's relevant, he'll explain. When it's not relevant, politics won't enter into it -- usually because too many people are busy shooting at our protagonists.

John Ringo, who was never a member of the Beatles, started his career with the Posleen War series, which has spun out of control into about a dozen books by now. The first four are self-contained, however-- a battle against cannibalistic Mongol hordes from space. He's former 82nd airborne, so the battles work.

And, you can download most of the books he's written for free, here.   And it's 100% legal.

Now, Ringo has only been an author for about ten years now.  He's published 35 novels. Thirty-five.  I've been writing on my own for fifteen years, and I only have about twenty-four.  So, professionally, I hate his guts. Personally, I have enjoyed everything he's ever written.  However, due to the sheer quantity of what he has published, I'm going to have to break him up into several series in order to get this into a readable format.

I should note now that this list of Ringo books is more or less written in order of series that I highly recommend, and that I think you will enjoy the most, in the order than I think you will enjoy them. Promise.

Since this blog post was originally written, I have since gotten an article on Examiner.com, so you can read the rest of the review there.  Or, here, as the case may be. 

Music Blog: Back in business with Tom Smith.

Sorry about the lack of music last week.  However, life sorta sucked.  However, it looks like we might be back on track.

Thank God for Tom Smith embeds ....

Anyway, this song is for anyone who: hates wikipedia, hates dating advice sights, or who is a nerd in love.

And, if you've never heard of Tom Lehrer .... well, you won't miss out on him for long. 

Giffords returns to congress. Insanity still wins out.

Back in January, I had written an article on the Arizona shooting, where lunatic Jared Loughner shot at Gabrielle Giffords. I never published it, since I really didn't want to get into politics at the time.

However, after the articles of yesterday, it's a little late for that.  Not to mention, Gabrielle Giffords returned to her congressional seat last night

So, below the break, you will essentially see a snapshot of January 12, 2011 (thank God for blog date/time stamping).  Remember that far back? How there was requests for "civility" in all things?

How did that work out?

Now, if anyone would like to send in a request, or suggestions for topics that are not politically-based, please feel free to send them in.  I'd really rather not have another week like this for at least three more months.

The January 12th article begins ......

Now.

Pfc Abdo, the Conscientious objector. The Revenge

I will issue a warning right now.  This post may have some ... intemperate language.

You may not remember my July 19th post about the inability of Muslims to be good Americans.... at least if you followed the logic and reasoning in the case of Pfc Nasser Abdo, a 21-year-old Muslim who discovered a religious objection to killing fellow coreligionists .... coincidentally, he discovered this religious objection in the lead-up to doing his own time in the field.

However, looking back, I wonder if anyone in the military bureaucracy talks to each other.

Why?

Because when Abdo was granted his status as a conscientious objector, he had already been AWOL (absent without leave) for over two weeks.  The charge? Possession of child porn.

It seems that when I referenced the Fort Hood shooter in my post about Abdo, I was more accurate than I knew.

Because Abdo was just arrested in Texas, in possession of firearms and bomb-making materials.  This comes from the Huffington Post, NBC DFW, and Fox News, so I think I'm being perfectly neutral here ...

The Associated Press reports that .... Abdo has admitted he was planning an attack on ....

Wait for it.....

Fort Hood.

Why I hate politics (Cont): Oslo terrorist a "Christian." Not.

Last week, I took a look at the Norway terrorist, and I labeled the article "Nazis, I hate these guys," because everything I had read about this guy meant that he was so far to the right, he was starting to orbit the planet.  And I was waiting for someone credible to label everyone on one side of politics (Republicans) for it,

The New York Times did not fail to disappoint.

This scumbag's name is Anders Behring Breivik.  The New York Times claimed that the Norwegian who staged two deadly attacks in Oslo was a "gun-loving," "right-wing," "fundamentalist Christian," opposed to "multiculturalism."

Well, that didn't take long.

Last week, there were fewer posts. There were no music blogs, and I failed to post on Thursday. Why?  Because I was trying to go through Breivik's gaseous 1,500-page manifesto, "2083: A European Declaration of Independence."

Dear God, this man is a windbag.  And he's about as "Christian" as Richard Dawkins.  Matt is more a Christian that this guy is.  At least in the traditional, American sense. [Read Below the break for more]